Deja Vu
by StephenMcTowelie
Summary: The story of the Walking Dead characters in the Falling Skies universe. Basically TWD if the walkers were aliens. Lousy summary I know. Rated T for language and violence. Chapter 1 in progress.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:**_ _Since I had been told countless times that my main Falling Skies story is basically FS with TWD characters I decided to satirize myself and do exactly that. Managed to get a few opening paragraphs and a fragmentary outline for two distinct versions of the story, one from the TWD characters' perspective where the walkers were subbed out for aliens and the other from the aliens perspective who are revealed to be the originators of the zombie plague which includes both walkers and aliens as adversaries for the TWD cast. This one is the former, the latter I decided against posting for the moment. This one basically follows through the timeline of the TWD TV series with the walkers to aliens change in play. Hadn't actually planned on continuing this but I might as well put what I have out here for people to see and if there is enough of a positive response for it I might give it a go. I know I don't really have much on it now (There are a lot of fragmented chapters I have to fill in the gaps on and right now I'm a little too burnt out to do that but I'll at least finish through the first episode of TWD in the coming weeks.) Let me know what you think of the premise and if it is worth continuing._

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Chapter I: Reincarnation

As the walkers tore into Rick's flesh he reflected on his last moments. His sorrowful mourning retreating into the depths of his mind served to dull the excruciating pain, a pain that would be over very shortly. How had he gotten this far only to be cut down on a routine supply run? It was the sad fact that no matter how secure you might feel that in this world one wrong turn, one minor slip up could still end it all. Death comes for us all, never had that statement been more real. He had seen those close to him fall victim to this cursed earth. He suffered greatly and grew from those experiences still mortality was never more real than when it was one's own mortality staring him down. So many had gone before him, why should he be any different? Rick could only hope that his soul, whatever it was that made him who he was did not remain with his body when it was resuscitated as one of them. Whether he simply ceased to be or was flung into the furnaces of hell either alternative would be preferable to becoming one of them, doomed to the fate of a mindless eater. Unable to move while his muscles were tore from his bones he watched his son and his friends perished around him. As his nerves snapped and his blood drained out the pain drifted into nothingness. His thoughts slowed, every second felt as if it was a lifetime. The moment was closing in on him and then darkness.

Rick gasped for air waking up abruptly in his hospital bed. The room was abandoned and disheveled. A vase of dead flowers sat by his bedside. Empty IVs were hooked up to his arm and electrodes taped onto his head and chest connected to a dead EKG machine. An equally dead EEG machine was sitting on the other side of him as well. He sat up to see a chair wedged against the doorknob holding the door shut. Rick looked around to see the windows shut but not latched. He peeled the electrodes off his body and removed the needles from his arm before he stood up on his bare feet. All of this seemed so familiar Rick thought as he deliriously walked towards the door. His head ached and his sense of equilibrium was way out of whack as he staggered slowly out the door. His throat was parched and his muscles weak, he probably hadn't had much nourishment for some time. As he walked into the hall he noticed a set of double doors leading into the morgue chained shut. He knew this place, he remembered this precisely. It was all coming back to him. Everything was exactly like the first day he found out that the world had ended except for one detail. The locked door was plain, untainted; it did not have the message of "Don't open. Dead inside." or "Don't dead. Open Inside." as it had read literally. Was this his life flashing before his eyes before he passed on just like the tales of near death experiences would suggest occurred upon physical death? Or was it all happening again; had he been sent back in time to that first day by some freakish act of God or granted some mystical foreknowledge of events to come so that he would not repeat the same mistakes? Was it just the freakiest coincidence that he had dreamed up a doomsday scenario just like the one that was playing out in front of him? The sense of Deja Vu was overwhelming when Rick exited the hospital and saw the bodies laid out and burned outside the loading docks. There were trucks and ambulances still in place just as he had remembered. There were walls built of sandbags and barbed wire around the vehicles forming them all into a makeshift wall. There was also something peculiar was added to the mix, something he did not recognize from his memories, if they were memories at all. There were horse drawn wagons abandoned outside the de facto wall built buy the motorized vehicles. The horses had long since been released but the wagons remained, some filled with the bodies of men, women and children.

Rick looked over the bodies of the dead, specifically the police and National Guard members looking for a weapon. He wouldn't be caught unprepared this time. When he found no weapons he wandered away from the hospital and headed towards the police station where in his recollection there had been quite a cache of arms for him to collect. Along the road to the police station Rick passed deserted houses and a spattering of abandoned cars. The vehicles were parked along the curb and in driveways and parking lots just as if it was any ordinary day. That was much like he remembered; it wasn't until he got onto the highway leading out of town that he had come upon the endless traffic jam from an aborted evacuation. The cars that stuck out to Rick were the ones that were left out in the street all alone. There were a couple that had bumped into each other in minor fender benders all well. By the time Rick reached the police station he was surprised that he hadn't encountered any walkers by then. He hadn't heard their hissing and snarling sounds at all. The whole town was eerily quiet, too quiet.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II: Days Gone Bye

Rick continued past the abandoned vehicles through the still frame of a lifeless community towards the county sheriff's office where he had worked. He saw no bodies among the cars, they were completely empty. There were no living people, and no dead in town. A few cars had appeared to have caught fire and or exploded, possibly as the result of accidents but the scene was quite askew from what he had remembered. Safer perhaps, as it seemed the walkers must have all left town and moved on in search of food elsewhere leaving none behind to remember them. The thought then occurred to him that it might have all been a dream. The walkers, the end of the world, everything was all a figment of his unconscious mind while he was in the coma; one that took his death in that world to bring him back to his senses here. There was something to waking up dead so to speak at the exact same point where everything had gotten weird years back. It was just as likely that this was hell, the rightful punishment for all of his sins committed in the name of survival, that he would be forced to relieve the experience again and again for all time. He didn't quite think of wanting to test that theory by popping himself in the head once he got a gun. This could very much be real and he didn't want to actually die for something that stupid. Regardless of the uneasiness Rick felt about the subtle, slight differences in reality something was still wrong about the world. There had been an incident; something had left the town deserted and at least a few people dead.

Rick reached the police station without incident. There were a row of police cruisers positioned around the steps leading to the front door to form a barricade. Rick noticed that one of the cruisers was but a badly burned out chassis and two of the others had some large caliber bullet holes punched clear through them. Stains of ash and dried up gasoline and other fluids marked the walkway and the grass. Behind the barricade were the corpses of seven officers. Rick noted their wounds, gunshots to the chest, throats cut, arms and legs ripped off. There were deep scratches but no bite marks; everything seemed to point to the fact these officers had died by human hands. Fuck, had shit gotten that far gone so fast this time. It took several months; maybe a year after Rick came to before they had to really start worrying about other survivor groups turning on and cannibalizing each other. It was happening faster this time, Rick thought as his stomach turned in fear. That being noted it was possible that all the guns Rick was hoping to retrieve had been snatched out of the police station and were in the hands of morally unbound brutes. "Oh great." Rick sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was run up upon the Governor when he was all alone and unarmed.

Rick looked over the bodies. They were all men he knew, Anderson, Thompson, Bevers, Brown, all fine deputies who he had worked with over the years. He did not see Shane among the dead.

"That part hadn't changed." Rick mumbled.

In a way Rick wished that his old partner was laid out on the ground before here. Sure would have saved some trouble down the road. That was lazy thinking though; Rick was too good of a man for that. Maybe it didn't have to go down like that. Maybe his friendship and his marriage wouldn't have to go to shit this time around. If it was all as if he remembered this time Shane's treachery would be known so perhaps he could intercede early on and prevent shit from going down the way it did, or perhaps it had to go down either way. That really didn't matter; if he could save his partner from the brink of madness he would, but ultimately it was just his wife and son that mattered most to him.

Noting the wounds on the dead officers he also found it curious that the policemen didn't have any head wounds save one whose head had been burst open like an egg leaving dried bits of its contents scattered all the way back to the base of the front door. They should've turned by now, but they didn't. They were "dead dead" and not coming back. Still Rick remained cautious of the potential for reanimation as he stepped over them and proceeded to the front door.

He carefully opened the door and stepped inside. He flipped on the light switch to illuminate the shadows in the halls and lobby between the cracks of light shining in through the windows. Nothing happened, the police station remained dark when he toggled the switch back and forth a few times.

"Guess I gotta go fire up the generator myself." Rick whispered. Usually the backup would've kicked on automatically but maybe someone shut it off when they were leaving or it ran out of diesel fuel though if he remembered correctly there was a solar backup on the side roof, part of the state's green energy initiative for public buildings that should have routed through the emergency circuits during the daylight hours.

There were some more dead bodies inside, cops and soldiers mostly, seemingly killed by stab wounds and gunshots like the ones outside. With a sense of guilt and disappointment he still didn't see Shane. The windows had been shattered in several places leaving glass scattered across the floor. Round bullet holes had been punched in the walls leaving thin rays of sunlight shining across the halls like laser beams. By the size of the holes and the penetrating power that had gone through several walls Rick assumed the people that did this were packing at least a .50 cal. or something bigger. He took a flashlight off the bodies of one of the slain officers. To his delight the flashlight turned on giving him a weapon against the darkness. He also took a gun off one of the officers so he would have a weapon against people and the walkers whenever they showed up. It was a Colt Python, the same gun he had grown fond of during the last go around through the apocalypse. He checked it out; it had three rounds plus one in the chamber. "Better than nothing." Rick assumed. With the light shining in front of him he started heading towards the stairs leading into the basement. He noticed the walls were spattered not only with blood but with a murky black substance, darker than blood and viscous but not dried out. Rick thought nothing of it and went downstairs to start up the generator to bring this place back to life.

That's odd? Rick thought. The backup generator didn't fire up. He checked the gauges; it had fuel, that wasn't the issue. Rick walked over to the wall and opened the breaker box to find all of the fuses had been blown. "God damn it." he muttered under his breath. It would take too long to change all of those out right now. He had to get back home and see if it was just as he remembered it. If so he knew exactly where he would find Lori and Carl. "I guess I'd just have to skip the hot shower for now." Rick told himself as he left the basement and went to the weapons locker upstairs.

To his delight all the guns he had remembered were there. Dumbasses that attacked the police station hadn't even bothered to raid it. Guess they just had some beef with authority then, Rick assumed. It didn't make much sense but he didn't dwell on the cause of his good fortune, he just accepted it. Rick gathered up a large duffel bag full of guns and ammunition with the foreknowledge that he would be needing them. Just because he hadn't seen any walkers yet did not mean they weren't out there. There were also the people who had shot up the police station somewhere out there to contend with; there was still a chance that they were still nearby. He changed out of his hospital gown and into one of his spare uniforms still on the hanger where he had left it. Now fully dressed and equipped he could meet the challenges of a new world head on.

Outside Rick took a closer look around as he left the area. To his surprise he didn't see any of the bodies of those who attacked the police station. All those officers would have had to have gotten at least one of them he assumed. Maybe they turned, but somehow the police didn't. Perhaps the outbreak wasn't as widespread as Rick remembered it. Not everyone was infected this time he thought. They could've taken their dead to prevent that from happening as well. Even shitheads could still care for the people they've lost. As he made his way back through the town he heard a rushing whoosh overhead and turned upward only to catch a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be an aircraft of some sort zip through the sky. It passed by too fast for him to make a positive ID whether it was a military or civilian jet, not that it really mattered. He was surprised to see a plane in the air. Not that he really should be, the planes were all still very much intact on the ground when the dead started walking. There was just no one to fly them. All it would take to get one in the air was to have someone trained as a pilot stumble across one and take off.

Rick returned to his home and found it disheveled in much the same way as he had remembered it. Photo albums, keepsakes all of those sentimental things that Lori would cling to were all gone. Rick didn't fear however, he knew where they were and how to find them. He picked up the duffel back he had dropped in the doorway to the master bedroom and stepped back outside. Turning down the street he started off on what would be a long journey to Atlanta. That journey lasted only a couple blocks however.

"Hold it right there!" a man's voice shouted at Rick from behind.

"Now put the bag down sir. Let me see your back. I don't want no trouble here." the man said.

It was a local man; the accent gave that much away. A milder accent than his own but definitely from the region. Not only that but the voice seemed so familiar. Then it struck him.

"Morgan? Is that you?" Rick asked.

"Don't be trying no tricks on me. I told you to set the bag down!" the man shouted.

Rick was certain it was him so he did as he was told. He had gained Morgan's trust once before, he could do it again.

"Now let me see your back!" the man demanded.

"You see it. There." Rick replied.

"Don't play dumb with me boy! Pull up your shirt." the man repeated.

Rick carefully pulled up his shirt revealing his bandages. To his surprise Morgan didn't question him about his wound. That was the first thing he remembered Morgan jumping on him about but this time it didn't happen.

"Alright now, turn around." the man told Rick.

Rick turned around to see a scruffy African-American man in his late 30s, possibly early 40s dressed in a brown jacket and jeans. His hair was neatly trimmed to about the same length as his facial hair. His eyes portrayed an unsettled caution brimming with fear behind a stern gaze of false confidence. Here was the look of a man who had seen loss, a man who was no stranger to tragedy and had come through it with the mental scars to show it. This man, as Rick as suspected was his old friend Morgan, though at the time the friendship was known only by Rick. Right now Morgan was pointing an old bolt action hunting rifle, probably scavenged out of a pawn shop in Rick's direction.

"You some kind of cop?" Morgan asked as he approached Rick.

"Sheriff's deputy." Rick replied.

"Mmmmhmmm." Morgan replied in an almost unbelieving tone of voice.

"Stand still and keep your eyes open." Morgan told Rick, hastily approaching him.

Morgan slung the rifle over his shoulder and took a small flashlight out of his pocket. With one hand he grabbed Rick's face and spread his right eye open wide and with the other he shined the light at him, nearly blinding him through his forced open eye. Rick didn't resist, at least not voluntarily, there were the usual reflexes and convulsions to being assailed and groped in that manner but he consciously tried not to put up a fight. If this was the Morgan he knew then he would be alright. He just had to prove himself as one of the good guys. Morgan repeated the process and backed away, once again taking up his rifle.

"I'm sorry mister but I gotta check everyone." Morgan told him.

"I understand. I wasn't bit." Rick replied.

"Bit? They don't get you through bites." Morgan replied sounding puzzled at the response.

The sound of a passing aircraft caused Morgan to hunch down and flinch out of fear. A detail Rick overlooked as their standoff was deescalating.

"I hear you shouting out here baby. What's going on?" a female voice called to Morgan.

"Ain't nothing. He's clean." Morgan answered.

Rick turned to see a woman running out of a nearby house. She was around Morgan's age, thin but healthy with smooth milk chocolate skin and wavy medium brown hair going down past her shoulders. She wasn't a stranger to Rick and definitely not to Morgan. Rick had seen her before but not like this, not alive. Was this, Morgan's wife?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III: New Old Friends

"No need to trouble yourself. I got it under control." Morgan told his wife as she briskly jogged over towards them.  
She ignored her husband's implication to turn around and go back in the house and proceeded inquisitively towards him and Rick. She hadn't seen another live human being for well over two months. Well, it depends on one's definition of human she supposed. Rick glanced over towards the woman. She looked a lot different that he had remembered. For one she was alive, there was color in her skin, the rosy hue of blood flowing from a still beating heat accentuating the mahogany glow of her face, diminished somewhat by the dust and grime which had settled upon her. Morgan immediately took to questioning Rick thereby shifting his attention away from his wife.

"What cha doing walkin out in the streets in broad daylight? You got a death wish or something?" Morgan asked Rick as his wife joined them.

"Daylight?" Rick wondered; as far as he knew that was the safest time to be out in the fallen world. The walkers only got more active and more dangerous at night. Not to dwell on the thought and look more suspicious Rick immediately attempted to answer Morgan's question.

"I was looking for my family, my wife and son. Have you seen them? A woman, brown hair, about this tall with a little boy around 7 years old?" Rick asked, playing dumb and providing a cursory description of his wife and son.

"Can't say I have. Ain't no one been here for weeks. All the folks either ran off or died, and the folks who ran off are probably dead too." Morgan replied pessimistically.

"What you got in that bag?" Morgan asked Rick.

"Like I said before I'm a Sheriff's deputy. I went down and cleaned out the weapons locker down at the station. That's what's in there, along with some personal items from home." Rick told Morgan truthfully then stepped away from the bag in a gesture of goodwill. "Take a look for yourself." Rick offered.

"Step back a little more ok?" Morgan told Rick. "And don't you try any funny business." he warned the sheriff.

Morgan kept his rifle trained on Rick, unsteadily balancing it in one hand while he stepped forward, knelt down and unzipped the bag.

"You weren't kidding. This bad boy's loaded for bear." Morgan remarked as he saw the contents of the bag.

Morgan didn't touch anything, only looked at what he could see from the outside and aside from a bunch of old photo albums and knick knacks it was stuffed to the gills with guns and ammo.

"You're welcome to have some if you'd like. Just leave the photo albums in there ok?" Rick offered.

"What is it?" Morgan's wife asked.

"Looks like we gots ourself a portable armory right here." Morgan replied as he stood back up and stepped away from the bag.

The sound of wind rushing around a distant aircraft traveling at supersonic velocities made Morgan instinctively hunch down and look for cover. As Morgan grabbed hold of his wife's hand and they both scurried underneath a nearby parked car Rick looked upwards into the sky. He didn't see any plane, or really anything and the sound faded away almost as quickly as it was first heard. If Rick had been someone more familiar with jet engines he would have noticed that the sound he heard was merely that of the air rushing around a fast moving object. There was no engine noise. However Rick hadn't as much as heard an airplane in years so the distinction was completely lost to him. Rick looked back at Morgan reemerging from under the car with his wife and grimaced, almost chuckling a little because he did not understand the danger. Did Negan or one of the other post apocalyptic warlords he had encountered have an Air Force in this timeline? Rick smiled, not taking the prospect too seriously. It was far too early for that to have happened. Negan was undoubtedly fighting for his life against hordes of walkers right now.

"Are those rescue flights?" Rick asked.

"They ain't gonna be rescuing nobody." Morgan replied in a dead serious voice.

"Huh?" Rick asked. He presumed the military was still making futile strikes against walker infested areas.

"Ain't no matter I suppose." Morgan brushed Rick's question aside. "Seeing as you ain't infested we best be getting you inside." Morgan told Rick.

Rick knelt down, zipped up his bag and picked it up under the watch of an old friend, an old friend who just didn't know it yet. Rick then followed Morgan and his wife into their home, a house he was already familiar with though he hadn't been there in quite a while. He went along without hesitation. While in some ways this was a new world and he didn't quite know what to expect, in another way it was like being reunited with an old friend, new old friends. Morgan held the door in one hand and a rifle in the other. Morgan's wife entered first, then Rick, followed by Morgan who shut the door and locked it behind them.

The house was dark, all the windows were partially boarded up and the drapes and shutters were closed. Only slender beams of sunlight crept in through the cracks providing some low level of ambient lighting. The furniture was dusty and the power was out, making it look somewhat like an abandoned property in spite of the people living there. Other than that the house appeared to be in good order, neatly arranged as it would have been any other day.

"Drop the bag and stand over there on the far wall." Morgan instructed Rick.

Again Rick did as he was instructed, hoping to eventually show his old friend he could be trusted. While Rick waited, Morgan and his wife slid the couch over in front of the door to barricade themselves in. Then Morgan walked over and picked up Rick's bag.

"I'm going to keep this for safekeeping tonight. Alright?" Morgan told Rick.

"Go ahead." Rick conceded.

"Keep an eye on him. I'll be right back." Morgan told his wife.

Morgan handed her the gun and carried Rick's back down a hall where Rick could hear the sound of Morgan's feet going up a flight of stairs followed by the faint sound of opening and closing a door. He had most likely stashed Rick's guns in the closet of an upstairs bedroom Rick presumed. Then the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs returned and soon after Morgan came back into the living room by the front door.

"So Sheriff.." Morgan started to say.

"Grimes, Rick Grimes and I'm a Sheriff's deputy." Rick interrupted.

"Sheriff Grimes. Well, my name is Morgan Jones and this is my wife Jenny." Morgan introduced himself and his wife to Rick.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance." Rick replied.

Morgan arched his back, rolled his shoulders and yawned as if he was trying to make it appear he was becoming more comfortable.

"Well, since you're here you might as well join us for dinner this evening. So few of us left these days me and misses have almost forgot what it is like to engage in human conversation. Once it gets dark you're free to leave if the streets are clear." Morgan told Rick in part as a gesture of good will and in part to continue to low-key challenge Rick and see if he truly could be trusted.

"I'd be glad too. Can't say I've eaten anything in a while." Rick replied.

"I'll go get the pork n' beans" Jenny told Morgan. "Meet me in the dining room in five." she added.

She handed Morgan back his gun and walked off into the kitchen. Morgan motioned for Rick to take a seat in a nearby chair. Rick sat down and looked over at Morgan, still standing in the hallway leading away from the living and dining rooms.

"What you been doing all this time that left you separated from your family?" Morgan asked.

"I got shot." Rick said.

"By whom?" Morgan asked.

The question troubled Rick a little in a strange way. Was it already so bad that people were turning against each other instead of trying to survive the walkers? The way events unfolded this time around made no sense. On one hand there was still an intact military making airstrikes against areas of heavy walker infestation while apparently civil society had broken down past the point of fear and banding together for mutual interest to the feudal warlord culture he had just departed from. The possibility that he was already dead became stronger in his mind as it appeared that various elements from throughout his experience following the end of the world were combined in irregular ways.

"Some perp. We were out to make an arrest and it turned into a shootout. Snuck up on me and got me good right here." Rick said pointing to his bandages. "It was before…. All this." Rick added after a long pause, spreading his arms to indicate he was speaking of the world around them.

"I was in a coma ever since, I can't say for how long. What day is this?" Rick asked Morgan in return.

"Can't say for sure. Sometime around November, maybe December. We've been marking down days but we lost a few when it first happened so we can't be sure." Morgan replied.

"When did it all go to shit?" Rick asked.

"October 4th, I woke up late that day, went out to get the Sunday paper at the time it all went down." Morgan answered. "It was just like any other day and then boom! Everything changed." Morgan said, clapping his hands together firmly once for emphasis.

Rick was quite surprised by the precision of Morgan's response. He would have assumed a worldwide walker pandemic would have a little more of a gradual build to it, as slowly society began to break down and collapse as the dead began to outnumber the living. The notion that one could pinpoint it to a single moment in time seemed preposterous to Rick.

"We counted at least sixty some odd days since it happened. After all that time out cold I'd say you are lucky to be alive." Morgan added. He reached down into a box sitting beside one of the couches adjacent to the hallway and pulled out two water bottles, walked over and handed them both to Rick.

"Drink up." Morgan instructed Rick. The concerned gesture gave some indication that Morgan accepted Rick's story.

"So you really don't know what happened?" Morgan asked.

"Well, I kind of have some idea what was going on. I've seen the things that did this." Rick answered, masking his foreknowledge in the form of a fictional encounter with a group of walkers on his way between the hospital and here.

"Ah I see. Well sure must be a shock waking up to a world as fucked up as this." Morgan said.

"That's one way of saying it." Rick replied after downing an entire bottle of water which still left him thirsty. He didn't quite realize just how depleted his body was of fluids and nutrients. He had just come back from a state near death, or maybe it was death itself, Rick couldn't be sure.

"Well let's get you fed. Jenny's probably getting impatient in there." Morgan told Rick.

"More like I've started without you." Jenny remarked as Morgan ushered Rick into the dining room.

Morgan leaned the rifle against a cupboard beside his seat at the table as Rick sat between Morgan and his wife. She handed Rick an opened can of pork and beans and a open can of sweet corn that had warmed over a candle's flame. She and Morgan shared a single can of pork and beans. They all sat down around the table and Morgan and Jenny offered Rick their hands to say Grace.

"Lord thank you for this food and the lifegiving nourishment it gives. Watch over us through these crazy days ahead." Morgan gave a short prayer.

"Amen." He and Jenny said in unison.

Rick dug in to his food, again he didn't realize how much of an appetite he had built up in about a two month fast. Morgan and his wife were amused by the voraciousness in which Rick devoured his meal but they were not surprised. It seemed more and more like Rick's story had checked out.

"So your family, they from around here?" Morgan asked.

"Yes. We lived in that house across the way. The one I was coming out of when you found me." Rick replied. "All this time we lived right in the same neighborhood but we never met. For all we know our boys could have played with each other growing up." Rick commented.

"Yeah. Your boy. . . ." Morgan started to say but then droned off into silence.

There was a definite disheartening in his voice. He went from easygoing with a diminishing level of concern to a somber, remorseful tone, as if he knew something terrible had happened. Morgan stared straight ahead, looking away from Rick and off onto a blank spot on the dining room wall. A spot where the dust wasn't built up quite as much; the brighter wallpaper following the outline of a place where a picture frame once hung. Morgan's countenance fell, his face grew long and somber. Rick feared another deviation from his timeline, this time not as slight as the others and far more dreadful to think about; the possibility that Carl was already dead. Before, his boy had outlived him, assuming he had even died that day. The actual reality of well, reality was still very much in question but for now Rick had to assume that what he was experiencing was real.

"You seen him? You seen Carl?" Rick asked impatiently.

"Your boy. . . . they would have had him by now." Morgan solemnly droned in a low voice.

"Do you know that? Did you see him?" Rick pressed Morgan for information.

"I don't have to. I know what they do." Morgan replied without the slightest shift in his low dismally deep tone of voice.

"Your boy is gone." Morgan continued.

"You don't know that, Carl may still be alive." Rick insisted. Morgan wasn't giving him facts, he was giving him despair. Despair was the one thing Rick could not give into, not this early in the game.

"I didn't say he was dead, I said he was gone." Morgan replied, his head turning back to face Rick in a slow fluid motion.

The sound of footsteps, dozens of them, moving en masse outside silenced Rick and Morgan's dinnertime debate.

"Shh… did you hear that?" whispered Morgan.

"Walkers" thought Rick. They were a little late showing up but lo and behold the world was catching up to him now.

"Come with me." Morgan told Rick before blowing out the candle on the dinner table.

Morgan picked up his rifle and crept out into the living room. Rick un holstered his weapon and followed behind. Morgan paid no mind to the fact that he had neglected to disarm the deputy earlier, in fact he was actually glad that he made that mistake now. Jenny followed behind them as they crept into the living room behind the couch that barricaded the door. Morgan took the rifle with shaky hands and used it to gently slide aside the curtain revealing a small gap in the boards over the window that allowed him to see a small portion of the street outside.

"You ever handle a gun before?" Rick asked Morgan, noting a few mistakes he was making already with his posture and unsteadiness with the weapon.

"Only when I had to." was Morgan's reply.

"Hand me the rifle then, I got this." Rick assured Morgan offering to exchange weapons with Morgan.

Shaking, Morgan handed Rick the rifle and backed away from the window. Rick took Morgan's place at the window and saw them outside. There were walkers outside sure enough but at first glance something seemed amiss about them. They walked steadier although they still appeared to stagger about and drag their feet on occasion as if in a daze. There were however stark differences that could not be ignored. For one they seemed "fresher" than before. Rick had to remind himself that this was much earlier into the troubles and the walkers hadn't deteriorated into the badly rotten forms he was more familiar with during later years. They also seemed to have some serious deformities going on with their backs, like the spine was mangled and protruding, discolored, charred and deformed. They must have all died in a similar fashion, maybe a bus wreck or a coordinated, identical form of mass suicide. Another thing to note is that they were all rather young, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 11-23 years old, the entire group. It was very likely they were all part of a school outing or a church group when they met their unfortunate end.

"You ever kill one of those things before?" Morgan asked Rick.

"Yeah, I have. You just go for the head, make it a clean kill." Rick said as took aim but waited to fire. They didn't seem to notice them and it there was no point in attracting the entire herd of walkers towards them if they were just going to pass them by.

"Not unless you're using a shotgun there boy." Morgan rebuked Rick.

"Pop 'em in the head and they'll just get right back up." Morgan corrected him.

"They don't need their brains no more, head's just on there for decoration." Morgan told Rick, his voice cracking, almost whimpering as he finished the sentence. "That bug there on their backs, that's what's operating them now." Morgan explained, fighting back the tears.

Rick squinted, paying more attention to the backs of the children and teenagers walking in front of him. What he had dismissed as spinal deformities he now saw upon closer examination as some kind of hard shelled, centipede-like parasite that had engrafted itself to the youths' backs. What the hell were those things? Is that what caused the infection in the first place, some kind of freaky parasite? Where the hell did those things even come from? From some lab, or from outer space or the bottom of the ocean?

"Unfortunately the bastards are damn near bulletproof from behind once they've latched on and hardened. You have to make the body no longer usable to them and the little fuckers will detach, revert back to their original form and try to crawl away. That's when you have a chance to kill them." Morgan continued, sniffling once or twice. "Now if you are really good you can go for the throat and you'll hit the bug on the underbelly right where it latches on, knock down both the parasite and the host in one blow." Morgan added, now fully constituted again having wrested his emotions back under control.

The reason why Morgan was disturbed had now yet dawned on Rick until now, though it should have been obvious from the start. There was one person missing from Morgan's household, Duane. Rick dare not ask Morgan what was wrong for he already knew, Duane had been turned. Why he didn't notice it before Rick wondered. Perhaps it was because Rick had known Morgan for longer without his son by his side, or perhaps because Rick's mind simply continued to refuse to accept what he was seeing as reality and tuned out a lot of the small inconsistencies with what he knew. To him, this could all still be some kind of dream or near death experience where his memories were all spliced and jumbled together in one big disorganized mess.

In this topsy turvy world Morgan hadn't come out any further ahead in the end of days than he did in Rick's "former life". In fact, in a way a father losing his son could leave an even deeper scar than a husband losing a wife so one could even say that Morgan had gotten more of a raw deal this go around.

"Ok then if you know how to kill them. I'll leave it to you." Rick whispered and handed the rifle back to Morgan.

Morgan again took over sniper duty until he saw one among the droves of zombified children, his own soon. He cringed as his eyes watered. He had to do it, he had to free his body from this undead torment, to let his body rest in peace. Morgan took sight of his boy, walking like a mindless flesh bag on a string in the procession going past his house. Again and again Morgan told himself that his boy was gone, that the thing he was looking at out there was not his son and what he was doing was for his own good. At least Morgan had to convince himself that it was better for his mental well being. If Duane was dead then Morgan could at last grieve for him properly.

All of his internal debate was for nothing. He couldn't do it, he just couldn't do it, he couldn't pull the trigger. How was he to know that Duane wasn't still inside of that thing out there; that some small part of his boy was still there beneath the flesh. Morgan recoiled back and handed the rifle to Rick while he sniffled and wiped his tears.

"How many of them have you killed?" Rick asked when he took back over as the house sharpshooter.

Morgan hesitated. "None."

That wasn't very reassuring to Rick. He didn't even know if this strategy Morgan was talking about would even work.

"But it ain't the kids you have to worry about it's…" Morgan began to say but he didn't need to finish. Just then Rick saw what Morgan was referring to.

It was inhuman, a ghastly monster like something out of a comic book or a bad sci-fi movie. It's body plan was something like the cross between a crab and a centaur. It's light brown skin was covered with hardened scales and had three long, thick, sharp claws on each limb. It's face had two small beady eyes and a rather small, thin lipped mouth revealing no obvious signs of teeth within. It had two drooping appendages on the sides of its mouth going down past its chin like a tentacled moustache. It moved like a creature with intelligence, not as some brute beast. Though it spoke no perceptible language, only a handful of clicks could be heard every now and again, it seemed to be directing the movement of the children as they marched along.

"…them." Morgan finished his sentence.

...

.

.

 _ **Author's Note:**_ _I had intended to make this chapter longer and run all the way through the first episode of TWD but given that I haven't posted anything on here for a while I decided to cut it here. It probably would be better to think of the chapters here like the segments in between commercial breaks rather than complete episodes. So you can expect to see the conclusion of the TWD pilot episode in chapter 4. Aside from that there are some tweaks and changes in both the harnessed humans and the skitters that are consistent with all of my FS reboot stories, (namely here in the fact that harnessed humans can survive a headshot if the harness is still functional, ergo replacing the function of the brain, granted the child cannot be saved and deharnessed at this point. Though I intend to take this change further in this story than I did in FS: Korea and have the harness confer abilities to quickly heal major bleeding so that I can have headless human soldiers in later chapters.)_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter IV: Realization

There it was. Rick shuddered at the freakish sight in front of him, his shoulders recoiling back in at what he had seen. This was most certainly something he had expected. If dreams were comprised of a jumbled, warped amalgam of the thoughts and memories and of his conscious mind then where in the hell did this thing come from? He hadn't a fear of spiders nor any kind of keen interest in them, or of crustaceans, crabs and insects. Whatever you would call this thing it looked like nothing Rick would ever have paid a minute's attention to. Rick didn't even know how to possibly put into words what he was seeing; the only word that came to mind was a monster. A monster indeed, the generic name for something frightening that should not exist. Rick was never one to read into tales of monsters, most of which were often laughable to begin with. Nor did he or Shane even joke around about the silliness of that kind of stuff. He didn't so much as even browse a few minutes of those "monster hunting" paranormal shows on the History channel, of which he only knew the internet meme "Aliens". It wasn't so much that Rick didn't believe in monsters, for he had seen many of them, only the monsters he believed in didn't look like that thing outside. The monsters he believed in were human. Human, or they had been at one point, and he wasn't just referring to the dead in that sentiment, but the living could easily be just as monstrous. The lines between humanity and savagery had blurred nearly to nonexistence long before Rick's fatal encounter which led him here, back to the beginning of the end it seemed. Human, heh? Rick thought to himself. What did it really even mean to be human anymore?

The question didn't matter, especially not to what was out there, what Morgan told him was the thing to truly fear. It was certainly not human, not by any definition of the word. It wasn't human, but it wasn't exactly a savage beast either. The way it moved, it's actions seemed too deliberate, too thought out to be operating purely on instinct. Maybe it wasn't quite up to human level intelligence but it was an intelligent beast nonetheless. A thinking monster…. The thought terrified him even more than before. Fear had been a constant in Rick's life before. After a while though it faded from being truly shocking, that paralyzing grip of fear that can stop a man in his tracks, to more of a background noise. He was always on guard, always dripping with adrenaline, senses heightened like a soldier in combat, but never shocked. He had seen so many horrors in his previous life that nothing should have surprised him at this point but here he was. Through what had seemed to be a flashback through his life after emerging from the coma he had yet to feel any sense of true fear. He believed that he knew what would happen before it would happen and made sure he was more prepared for it this time around. In spite of the slight differences in this new life Rick believed with this foreknowledge he would come out on top. Up until now Rick had thought he would be going through life one step ahead of the game but now, now came the realization, the realization that he was facing a very different enemy than before.

He glanced quickly over to Morgan who had ducked behind the cover of a nearby chair holding the revolver Rick had given him closely. "What the hell is that thing?" Rick thought to ask Morgan but dare not utter the words lest his whispers draw attention from whatever that was outside. Rick steadied his shaking hands and took aim with the rifle towards the head of the creature outside. Upon closer observation he noticed that the creature was wearing some sort of body armor meshed over its chest and back. The armor, resembling a breastplate was dull and drab in appearance and blended in with the color of the creature's skin. The scales turning into a solid smooth surface was the only way to tell where the creature's skin ended and the armor began. This only hammered home the fact he was dealing with an intelligence, a beast driven solely by predictable instinct could not have put on the body armor let alone create it. These monsters could create as well as destroy. What's more as he was staring down the creature trying to make sense of it in his mind it looked back at him. With its gaze Rick could almost hear its thoughts, not in words or sounds but more of an impression that he felt. It was a warning.

"How do you kill one of those things?" Rick whispered softly to Morgan, already breaking his silence.

Morgan shook his head side to side and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know." Morgan's voice was indistinguishable from the breath he released.

"Shit." Rick thought to himself. How could Morgan have survived this long without killing a single one of these creatures, or one of the turned youths at that. He could have just gone for the headshot, the old standby which was almost second nature to him by now. The thing did have a head after all. Then again it's anatomy could have been totally different from a human being's. It's brain could be up its asshole or something. How was Rick to know that if he capped this spider monster than all the zombified children it was herding wouldn't turn and attack him. His ammo bag was upstairs and he and Morgan didn't have enough rounds among the two of them to stop them all. This was the time to wait. Discretion was the better part of valor after all. He just had to hope the monsters weren't hungry and would simply pass them by. Rick looked back at Morgan, his facial gestures seemed to back Rick up on the decision to stand down. Rick backed his finger off the trigger, lest a sudden movement cause him to accidentally fire the weapon, but he kept it aimed at the monster.

Not long after a second creature came into view and seemed to compel the first one to keep moving and catch up with the group of young men and women marching ahead. The motion of their head and limbs seemed to indicate they were speaking to each other but Rick could hear no sound. They didn't chat for long and soon enough they scampered off on their way down the road to catch up with their herd of fresh, young buggified walkers.

Several minutes passed and then Rick deeply exhaled, feeling certain now that the danger had passed them by. He then got up and walked back towards the hallway. Morgan and his wife followed suit and stood up. Rick looked down the hall and thought of running upstairs to go and get his ammo bag. He needed it down here in case more of those things showed up later. However that would be a poor showing to Morgan and Jenny, he hadn't fully earned their trust. Hell, in this new world they hadn't really begun to earn Rick's trust even. Rick turned back towards Morgan who was looking at him nervously. Rick couldn't tell if the apprehension was because they just had a close call with mutant spiderman or because Morgan was afraid Rick might try something on them now. Rick wanted to put their minds at ease, but only after he could put his own mind at ease and get some answers about what the hell was going on.

"What in the hell are those things out there?" Rick asked.

Morgan believed Rick. His expressions and behavior had told it all. His fear, his astonishment were all genuine. He had never seen one of them before. Two months and Rick had not seen one of the creatures, the only way Morgan could think of that would have been possible is if Rick had been telling the truth all along. Rick in fact actually had been in a coma through all of this.

"You really have no idea what happened do you?" Morgan asked rhetorically.

"I thought I did. I thought I remembered. Even though I was in the coma I thought I could hear things, incredible things, terrifying things, about the dead coming back to life and feeding upon the living." Rick answered though his response was unsolicited as Morgan was just giving Rick time to collect his thoughts and gauge his reaction.

"Heh." Morgan scoffed. "That must have been the coma playing tricks on you. I don't know if you dream in that state or not but no, the dead stay dead, much as they always have done. Well, unless of course they stick one of those things in you before your tissue is too badly degraded. From what I see they prefer living victims though. Dead flesh loses some of its utility to them so they usually just leave 'em to rot. I guess it's like a used car versus a new one. It loses a hell of a lot of value the second you drive it off the lot and these guys are very picky on who they take. Hell not even half of the living are fresh enough for them. They like 'em young, budding before they even hit their prime. I've seen them as young as seven or eight and no older than the mid twenties. Maybe it's compatibility issues with the lowjack backpack on their backs or maybe they don't want any rust between the gears so to speak." Morgan explained as he started to ramble off.

"That doesn't answer my question though. Who are they? What was that monster?" Rick asked again.

Morgan took a deep breath and exhaled before he dropped the bombshell on Rick. "What you just saw out there was a creature from another world." Morgan told him.

Rick was the one to chuckle a bit this time at what he heard. So the meme was right all along, it was "aliens" Rick snickered to himself.

"So you're saying that creepy crawler out there is an alien?" Rick asked Morgan, laughing softly under his breath.

"Yes." Morgan answered, deathly serious in his response. "Boy, you have missed a lot. How long were you in that coma again?" Morgan continued.

"I don't know. Since the summertime, June, July maybe." Rick replied.

Morgan and his wife went into the kitchen and bid Rick to follow them before they filled him in on how the world got to almost be a replica of the nightmare he remembered. Morgan's wife lit a lone candle on the center of the table and Morgan began to reminisce over the fall of man.

"So you knocked out not long before it all began." Morgan said. "I still remember the date. I think everyone that survives does. July 31st, in the early morning hours was when we the ships first came. There were rumors buzzing on the news and on the internet that the ships had been detected out by Jupiter sometime during the night before. Now they just hung out around the moon for a while there so really didn't know what they were. Could have been just a bunch of space rocks that got caught up in orbit. It was late at night, on the 22nd of August that we could no longer deny we were alone in the universe. I was woken up by the neighbors, everything had gone up in a ruckus when they saw one of the ships passing overhead. It was a smaller ship, one of the flying saucers that stuck around after all the big ones left. Was heading to Lexington I suppose because we didn't see it for very long. Turned on the news to find out those things had appeared over every city on the planet. Caught a few pictures on the TV of the big ones over D.C. and Hong Kong. Damn things were half the size of the city and the ones in orbit were even bigger. People flipped out, there was chaos, panic, rioting, shortages, all that mess, but nothing happened. Eventually we collectively as a society calmed our shit and settled down. We tried to make contact with them but they either couldn't or didn't want to talk with us. Then, all the sudden that fateful October morn, what had taken mankind 10,000 years to build was wiped out in less than a minute. The lights went out, the cars all stopped, planes fell out of the sky, the ground shook and just like that it was over. Folks passing through later from other parts had told us stories of huge tsunamis on the coasts and those who lived near military or government installations were hit with meteors from the sky, followed by dive bombers to finish off anything that might of survived. The next day they came. They took the children and killed anyone who got in their way. Ever since it's just been like this, playing hide and go seek with the bugs." Morgan recounted his memory of how the world ended.

"They took all the children you say? I suppose that's what you meant earlier when you said my boy was gone. But you didn't see him did you? You didn't see Carl?" Rick drilled Morgan.

"Can't say I did. I was too tied up dealing with my own boy…." Morgan answered.

"Our boy, Duane was taken by them." Morgan's wife interjected seeing that Morgan was having difficulty saying what had happened.

"I'm deeply sorry ma'am I really am." Rick expressed his condolences.

Morgan sighed and continued. "They got everyone they wanted and got out. We rarely even see them anymore."

Rick remained silent. He wanted to jump down Morgan's throat and argue that Carl could have escaped. His son was resourceful, and could very well still be alive. To say that however would be a slap in the face to Morgan's boy, and Rick wasn't about to upset someone who had been a dear friend in a previous life that way.

Rick decided on a new line of questioning. "If they just got the children what happened to all the adults? You can't be the only ones that survived." Rick asked. He thought that he could still find Lori, and if he found Lori she could provide him answers about Carl.

"Some of them died when the attack came, others ran away at the first opportunity. Still others stayed around for a while but eventually set off looking for greener pastures. As far as we know me, you and Jenny are the only ones left alive in this town. Everyone else is dead and gone. You can still see the bodies out there. We buried a few that were killed around the vicinity of the house to guard against disease." Morgan explained.

"And so it wouldn't stink up the place." His wife chimed in.

"Did you happen to bury my wife? Brunette, about this tall.." Rick began to ask.

"We didn't bury no women. So if she's out there she's lying wherever she fell, or you might want to check all the corpses they got piled up over at the hospital before it was overrun." Jenny told Rick.

"I didn't see her there. So that means she probably left with the others I'm assuming." Rick stated.

"Probably, I can't see why anyone would leave though. This town is about as safe as any." Morgan commented.

"Why would you say that? We just saw a couple monsters crawling around out there with a herd of walkers. Doesn't exactly ring of "safe" to me." Rick inquired.

"It ain't as bad as it could be. This is occupied territory, they don't come round here that often. This town is off the main routes so once they cleaned it out they ain't got much use sticking around. After the day the world fell apart I hadn't hardly seen any troubles 'cept maybe once or twice when the big bugs swept through looking for stragglers that escaped the main purge. From what I hear from folks that had been passing through a lot of other places got it much worse." Morgan informed him.

"When was the last time any folks had passed through here?" Rick asked. "And where were they going?" Rick asked, hoping to glean some knowledge on where Lori might have run off to.

"Two weeks ago, a group came down from the Northeast. They were about 14 strong, half of them were armed. Said they had seen heavy fighting along the I-95 corridor on their way down and were looking for a place to lay low for a while." Morgan answered.

"They were staying at the old high school. They planned to hold down the fort a while so they could tend to their wounded first before moving on. Then one of the men got something in his eye and turned on the others. Killed them all in their sleep but not before one of them put a bullet in his throat. Seems he wasn't as through with all his victims, gave them all a quick kill but one. In the end his own wife put him down. I found her dying the next day when I went to trade with them. She told me all that had happened before she passed." Morgan recounted the tale to Rick.

"Got something in his eye? What's that supposed to mean?" Rick asked.

"I don't know. A parasite perhaps. Something these critters put in people to make them go mad. That's what I was checking you for out there when I found you. "Morgan answered. "That group had told me about them when I first encountered them. They checked me out too. Said they ran across a man in Philly who had been possessed by one of them critters. Wormers they called them. They told me if you shine a light into the eyes real fast and stare down the pupils you can see this little worm thing for a second before it wiggles away." He continued.

"I don't think it completely pulls you out of your mind though." Morgan said after a short moment of silence with a degree of lament in his voice.

"What makes you say that?" Rick asked.

"That woman, her husband, the one who went insane; I don't think he intended to kill her. He could fight it, not enough to stop it, but enough to give his girl a fighting chance." Morgan explained.

"I'll have to make sure not to get anything in my eyes then." Rick commented, not entirely believing what Morgan had said, but stranger things had happened so he had to consider every possibility.

"Did they tell you where they were headed? Did anyone that left give any idea of where and why they were going?" Rick continued to ask Morgan.

"Everyone had their own reasons. Some people had ideas of starting up a resistance and driving the aliens out, others just wanted to get away from the fighting. Mostly I think we all just wanted to survive a bit longer before kissing this crazy world goodbye." Morgan answered.

"Did any of them say where?" Rick asked again.

"The only concrete answer I ever heard was that what was left of a National Guard unit was setting up an emergency relief center outside of Atlanta. There they promised to try and protect everyone that came to them. This was from a couple of West Virginia guardsmen that said the word came through over the short wave radio when most of the alien forces packed up and left on the third day but prior to some of the smaller, disc shaped motherships returning. They said there was a brief period in the shuffle which they were able to get through without being jammed and during that time they picked up the broadcast from Atlanta. A lot of people believed this and took off. I thought it was nothing but a bunch of hogwash so I stayed put." Morgan explained.

Atlanta, just the same as he remembered, Rick thought. It wasn't too farfetched to believe that the military could have shielded some of their communications equipment from the effects of whatever the aliens used to fry the electrical grid. A short wave radio wasn't exactly the most sophisticated piece of equipment out there either; maybe it was just too low tech to be disabled. Most of all Rick felt confident because of his previous experience. He knew Lori was in Atlanta, and Carl with her. Shane would probably be there too, he hadn't forgotten about that, nor did he really care to relive the experience of having to murder his partner who had been shacking up with his wife. Rick had now already made up his mind. He was going to Atlanta.

"This relief center, you suppose it's still there?" Rick asked Morgan.

"I don't know, the whole place could have been vaporized by now. I think it's pretty foolish to gather a whole bunch of people in any one place. Makes it so much easier for one of the flyers to come by and drop a bomb on you." Morgan explained.

"Well, Atlanta huh? It might be a pipe dream but it's hope. So that's where I'm going." Rick told Morgan.

"Now don't be so hasty to run off. You're more than welcome to stay here. We can look after each other." Morgan offered Rick.

"Thank you for your generosity but I need to find my family. I know they might not be out there but I've got to try. Call it a gut feeling but I know my wife and son are safe down in Atlanta." Rick told Morgan, remembering what had happened before and where he would find Lori and Carl if all repeated itself closely enough to how he remembered. If anything, this would be a test to see how much of this renewed nightmare would follow the hell that Rick had already gone through to get here.

"I can't stop you but I would ask you to sleep on it. Get some rest and you can set out in the morning. The aerial sweeps usually happen at sunrise and noon so if you get out of town between those times you should be safe." Morgan said to Rick.

"Well I am tired. I could use one good night's sleep before I set out." Rick replied.

"I'll show you to the upstairs bedroom." Jenny offered.

"And I'll get your guns for you in the morning." Morgan added as Rick got up and followed his wife out of the kitchen and towards the stairs.

Morgan then blew out the candle and made his way to the master bedroom and waited for his wife to return.

That morning Rick awoke to find his bag of guns set out on the floor in front of him, untouched with a pack of peanut butter bars on top of it. Rick got up, picked up the box of peanut butter bars and examined it.

"Packed with protein. They'll help you keep your energy up." Morgan spoke up, having just walked past the doorway to check on Rick.

"You startled me there." Rick said.

"I didn't mean to." Morgan apologized. " You should start expecting things to sneak up on you like that though. That's the way the world is going to be from now on." Morgan said half jokingly.

Rick put on his shoes and quickly got ready. Then Rick and Morgan then went downstairs where they met Morgan's wife.

"Looks like you're ready to be on your way." Jenny commented.

Rick nodded and took a few steps towards the door. Then stopped and turned around facing Morgan and his wife.

"I really appreciate all that you have done for me. Thanks." Rick thanked them.

"I tell you what. Here, each of you take one of these guns and few boxes of ammo for yourselves." Rick offered, unzipping the bag and presenting it to Morgan and his wife.

They each took a weapon and the ammo that they were offered. Morgan set his down on the couch and walked outside with Rick while Jenny put the new guns away. Morgan looked overhead to see clear skies without any evidence of flyovers happening at the moment.

"Looks like as good a time as any." Morgan told Rick.

"You said to kill one of the walkers you shoot them in the neck just below the chin right?" Rick asked Morgan as he inspected his rifle.

"Walkers? Oh, you mean the kids that turned. Yeah, I never done it, but I saw it though, back in the beginning when there were still a few folks who stuck around." Morgan answered.

"Alright then. I suppose I'm on my own for the monsters eh?" Rick joked.

"Sorry. I never saw one of them get taken out before." Morgan told Rick.

"That's alright. I'll figure out some way." Rick chuckled.

Rick went up to a cherry red pickup truck that was abandoned outside while Morgan followed a short distance behind. He climbed up and put his bag in the passenger seat then knelt down to try and hotwire the vehicle.

"Don't even waste your time trying to hotwire a car. Unless you can find something made before '71 it won't start no matter what you do. That old shit was made pretty sturdy back then." Morgan told Rick remembering something he had heard from one of those that had evacuated the town early on.

Rick got away from the car and took his things out of the seat.

"Stay off the roads, keep to the trees or under cover. You don't want to be seen by the air. Don't make a lot of noise and don't start any fires around where you plan on sleeping for the night, even if you put it out. Light, heat, they can see all that. " Morgan advised Rick.

"Thanks for the tips." Rick replied.

"Best of luck to you Rick Grimes. I hope you find what you are looking for." Morgan said wishing Rick well.

"Thank you. You seem like a good man. After I get down to Atlanta and find my family, I'll come back for you." Rick told Morgan.

"You're a good man too. Take care of yourself now." Morgan told Rick before he set out away from town.

And with that Rick Grimes parted company with Morgan and set out for Atlanta where he believed he would be reunited with his wife and son, just as he had remembered.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter V: A New World

After a short walk Rick had stepped out onto the road leading south out of town. It was unlike how he remembered it. There was no bumper to bumper traffic backed up and abandoned as vehicles had run out of gas or one or more of their occupants had turned. There was only what appeared to be the sparse, normal day to day traffic coming in and out of town that had been frozen in place, like a still frame of any ordinary day only minus the people. Following Morgan's advice Rick left the road and proceeded south to slightly southwest into the woods and hills. Calling upon his survival skills for navigation which had been honed a great deal in his previous life Rick made his way through the Appalachian foothills towards the direction of Atlanta. This was a trip he had made before, only back then he had the luxury of taking the direct route, and a vehicle for at least part of the journey. Traveling on foot Rick thought would take forever. Nonetheless he pressed on. With any luck he would run across some small town or a farm or an enclave of hillbillies where he could find an old, still operational vehicle or a horse to make the miles ahead pass by quicker.

The first day came and went without incident. Rick ate two of the peanut butter bars Morgan had gave him and slept lightly in between an old hickory tree and some thick bushes to hide himself from outside eyes. As he started to fall asleep he saw the faint twinkle of soft blue lights passing quickly overhead high above the tree tops. This was the first time he had ever seen one of these flyers, even if it was nothing more than tiny blue lights high up in the sky. It looked gentle, almost calming how the lights shone down as if they were nothing but rays of fallen starlight drawn down to earth.

Rick ventured on for three more days rationing his food supplies and eating wild berries and drinking water from streams and scavenged from an abandoned country home he had slept in on the second day. The residents of that house had long since chosen to hang themselves rather than face the terrifying new world out there. On the evening of the third day Rick heard the sound of automatic weapons fire. Venturing out to investigate he ducked down behind some boulders tangled in vines and brush and looked down onto a road which was a short distance down a cliff from where he was. There Rick observed a firefight between three alien creatures and seven people armed with AR-15s, M4s and semi-automatic shotguns. Morgan wasn't kidding when he had implied these things were tough to kill. One of the creatures appeared to weather through an entire magazine which just nicked off its armor and thicker scales on the arms and shoulders as it charged straight for the center of the group. One of the human fighters fired a shotgun blast which tore through one of the front knee joints of the charging creature causing it to stagger forward and to the side a little but wasn't soon enough to stop the creature from swatting the lead fighter at the center of the group with its forearm, sending the man flying roughly eight feet back onto the road where he skidded along the pavement. Meanwhile a second alien had climbed along the side of the cliff and pounced down upon the man with the shotgun, stomping him down into the ground. At the same time the second creature extended its clawed fingers and impaled another man through the chest. Using the impaled man as a shield the second creature charged forward then battered another man to death with the dying, soon to be dead man stuck on its hand and grabbed hold of the head of another man and crunched it as effortlessly as squashing a grape. The first creature staggered forward taking a few more shots which struck its body armor before it grabbed a woman by the shoulders and slammed her face first down into the concrete, breaking her face in the process. The third creature had jumped onto the far cliff away from Rick, dodging gunfire and jumped behind the group and speared the sixth member of the group through the abdomen from behind with a clawed hand. Rick found it odd that the same alien race that built those ships flying around up there did not utilize any form of weaponry with their ground forces, albeit the three creatures were doing just fine without any weapons. Maybe these weren't even soldiers or the aliens were afraid that their weapons would fall into human hands if their troops were killed wielding them. Either way the situation still looked grim for the humans whom Rick had been silently cheering for but refused to give away his position by assisting. The lead fighter pulled himself up from the street behind the third monster, reloaded and fired at the creature's back, hitting both its armor and striking it between the shoulders, penetrating the thick scales and making the creature wince and jerk in pain. The alien rushed off to the side and jumped to avoid more gunfire landing behind the man and with both hands plucking the man's head from his shoulders. The final surviving member fired a sawed off shotgun in face of the second creature which had just turned back towards him after checking out his fellow alien dispatch the human team leader. Its lapse in concentration proved fatal as the shotgun blast tore through the creature's face and the alien fell down backwards into a pile of twitching arms and legs. "So they can be killed." Rick marveled to himself. That was the first piece of good news he had learned since he first discovered the divergence from his reality caused by these creatures. The first creature limped towards the man who now blasted away the creature's wounded leg, only dangling by tenuous tissue on the damaged knee then shot the stunned creature in the shoulder just past the juncture of its armor causing a spray of dark red or black blood to spurt out in a single discharge. This did not save him for the third alien had quickly rushed him and now, like a puppet had shoved its hand through the man's rectal cavity all the way up until it pierced through the neck. Up until now Rick hadn't had a clear shot; the aliens were too fast and there was always a human in the way. Now that he had the shot it didn't matter, he saw what they did to seven people and he did not feel confident he could take on them both. Rick ducked down and hid; he tried to remain perfectly still and hoped beyond hope that the aliens would go away. The third creature crawled up the cliff towards him but did not go all the way and soon rejoined it's wounded brother on the street. Rick peeked out from behind the rocks and observed the mostly unharmed creature assisting its wounded comrade leave the scene of the fight. The bodies of one dead alien and seven dead humans were simply left behind to rot. Two things Rick had just learned from this; one, the aliens did have a sense of compassion, at least for their own kind, and two, it did not appear that they cared to bury their dead, granted he might be jumping the gun on that one. Rick didn't wait around to see if a spaceship would show up to recover the body though. As soon as the coast was clear Rick retreated back into the woods and went as far as he could until fatigue got the better of him and he spent the night in a cave.

Come morning Rick ate the last of the peanut butter bars and continued his journey. He made his way to a stream where he successfully shot himself a duck for lunch. Although as he cleaned his kill and prepare to start a fire his meal plans were interrupted. A rustling in amongst the underbrush startled Rick who took out his revolver and spun around, quickly surveying the entire area. He didn't see anything but remained on high alert. A leaf fell down and landed on his nose briefly before sliding off as Rick quickly turned upwards. There in the high branches was one of the creatures. It leapt from tree to tree effortlessly, shaking twigs and leaves off as it went. The creature didn't seem to notice Rick on the ground and continued on to wherever it was headed. Rick didn't wait around to enjoy his roast duck however and stealthily crept away in case there were more creatures around. That night he slept in an abandoned barn after cooking and eating the duck a few miles away. He woke several times during the night when he thought he heard something. Each time he remained still and tried not to draw any attention to himself as it sounded like there were multiple creatures outside at one point.

When he woke up he also heard something outside, but this time it wasn't something monstrous or alien. He heard the sound of people talking. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying but it was distinctly human voices he heard. Knowing all too well that humans could be just as dangerous as any walker, beast or alien Rick drew his gun and carefully made his way outside. When he got outside what he saw wasn't quite human at first glance. Well it was but it was made not to look that way. There were three individuals gathered by the well on the right side of the barn. They wore the skinned hides of the alien creatures over their bodies, wrapped over themselves tightly as both a disguise and a form of body armor. Their heads were covered by a dead skin mask made of the aliens' facial scales. All in all they looked as if they were a bipedal version of the creatures Rick had seen at Morgan's house and in the woods. Two of them carried rifles and one carried a crudely fashioned spear made from a knife hafted to a broom handle. Upon noticing Rick the three men fell silent and faced Rick.

"Are you with the resistance?" Rick asked presuming these men to be soldiers fighting against the aliens.

"Resistance, oh no. We do not resist those who have freed us." The man with the spear replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just thought because of the…" Rick apologized for his assumption and made hand gestures over his own body to indicate he was talking about the alien skins they wore. "…that you might be like soldiers trying to camouflage yourselves. I heard mention there was a resistance out there so…" Rick continued, distancing himself from any inclusion in the resistance to those who seemed to have a favorable view of the aliens.

"I believe you are quite mistaken. We do this to honor our fallen space brothers. You see, they have shown us what we really are, base, savage beasts, nothing more than wild animals tamed by centuries of false comforts and luxuries. They have freed us from the greatest lie ever perpetuated on the human species; that we are somehow special in the universe. So in gratitude we aspire to be like them, and embrace this new world that they have built." The spear wielding man explained.

"Oh, I didn't mean to offend you with the assumption. You see I had been in coma through all of this and well, the world is quite strange to me now. I honestly don't know what to believe anymore." Rick explained.

"Do not worry. If you would like we could help you on your path to enlightenment." The man offered Rick.

"I am called Sigma, who might you be?" the man introduced himself, extending his hand towards Rick.

"The name is Rick Grimes." Rick answered hesitantly. Sigma, he thought, the name sounded somewhat familiar, and not in a good way.

"Come with us Rick Grimes, you must have many questions. We shall take you to our leader and she will show you the truth. Come now, Alpha would be delighted to meet you." Sigma beckoned to Rick.

Oh shit, Rick thought. Not this again….


End file.
